The antidote to apathy 冷漠的解药，让我们不再冷漠
TED Technology, Entertainment, Design在英语中的缩写，美国的一家私有非营利机构，以它组织的TED大会著称；将”用思想的力量来改变世界”作为宗旨。事实上，除了科技、娱乐、设计的主题，这场盛会涉及的领域还在不断扩展，展现着涉及几乎各个领域的各种见解，TED的演讲简短且深刻，参加者们称它为 “超级大脑SPA”。
How often do we hear that people just don’t care? How many times have you been told that real, substantial change isn’t possible because most people are too selfish, too stupid or too lazy to try to make a difference in their community? I propose to you today that apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist, but rather, that people do care, but that we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in our way.
我们多久会听到 人们说他们毫不在乎？ 你多少次被告知 不可能发生真正的、实质性的变化， 因为多数人都太自私、 太愚蠢或是太懒惰了， 不会试着在他们的社区内有所作为？ 我今天想告诉各位，那些我们自以为了解的冷漠 其实并不存在， 相反，人们真的在乎， 我们生活的世界中， 我们不断地在我们的前方 设置障碍和壁垒以阻碍参与。
And I’ll give you some examples of what I mean. Let’s start with city hall. You ever see one of these before? This is a newspaper ad. It’s a notice of a zoning application change for a new office building so the neighborhood knows what’s happening. As you can see, it’s impossible to read. You need to get halfway down to even find out which address they’re talking about, and then farther down, in tiny 10-point font, to find out how to actually get involved. Imagine if the private sector advertised in the same way — if Nike wanted to sell a pair of shoes and put an ad in the paper like that. (Applause) Now that would never happen. You’ll never see an ad like that because Nike actually wants you to buy their shoes. Whereas the city of Toronto clearly doesn’t want you involved with the planning process, otherwise their ads would look something like this — with all the information basically laid out clearly. As long as the city’s putting out notices like this to try to get people engaged, then of course people aren’t going to be engaged. But that’s not apathy; that’s intentional exclusion.
我会给些例子来做说明。 让我们从市政厅开始。 各位以前见过这类东西么？ 这是个报纸广告。 这是份新办公楼区划变更申请的通知 让邻近的人就能知道发生了什么。 正如各位所见，这简直没法读。 需要半道停下来 去弄明白他们说的地址是哪儿， 接着往下读，用微小的10号字体 标明了如何才能参与其中。 想象一下私营机构也用同样的方式广告 — 试想一下，耐克想销售一双鞋 并用这样的广告在报纸上做广告。 （掌声） 这永远不会发生。 各位永远不会看到这样的广告， 因为耐克是真的想让你们去购买他们的鞋子。 然而多伦多市 显然不想你们参与规划过程， 不然他们的广告应该是这样的 — 基本上所有的信息都清楚地列出来。 只要市政府还在发布像这样的通知 来让人们参与其中， 那么人们当然不会参与。 但这不是冷漠； 这是有意地排斥。
Public space. The manner in which we mistreat our public spaces is a huge obstacle towards any type of progressive political change because we’ve essentially put a price tag on freedom of expression. Whoever has the most money gets the loudest voice, dominating the visual and mental environment. The problem with this model is that there are some amazing messages that need to be said that aren’t profitable to say. So you’re never going to see them on a billboard.
公共空间。 （掌声） 我们糟蹋公共空间的行为 对任何类型的进步政治变革来说 都是一个巨大的障碍。 因为本质上，我们在言论自由上贴上了价格标签。 最有钱的人有最大的发言权， 并支配着视觉和心理环境。 这一观念的问题在于 有些需要传递的很棒的讯息 是无利可图的。 因此，绝不会在布告板上看到它们。
The media plays an important role in developing our relationship with political change, mainly by ignoring politics and focusing on celebrities and scandals, but even when they do talk about important political issues, they do it in a way that I feel discourages engagement. And I’ll give you an example: the Now magazine from last week — progressive, downtown weekly in Toronto. This is the cover story. It’s an article about a theater performance, and it starts with basic information about where it is, in case you actually want to go and see it after you’ve read the article — where, the time, the website. Same with this — it’s a movie review, an art review, a book review — where the reading is in case you want to go. A restaurant — you might not want to just read about it, maybe you want to go to the restaurant. So they tell you where it is, what the prices are, the address, the phone number, etc.
在发展我们与政治变革的关系上， 媒体扮演了一个重要的角色， 主要是通过忽视政治， 专注于名流和丑闻做到这些的。 但甚至他们在讨论重要的政治问题时， 也是以一种阻碍参与的方式。 我来举个例子：上周的现在杂志 — 进步者，多伦多市中心每周发行。 这是个封面故事。 它是一篇关于剧场演出的文章， 以在哪儿演出的基本的信息开始， 在你阅读了这篇文章后，一旦你真的想去看看 — 地点，时间，网址一目了然。 这篇也一样 — 这是篇电影评论， 一篇艺术评论， 一篇书评 –假若你想去读读，在哪儿能读到。 一家餐馆 — 或许你不仅仅是想读读， 也许你想去那家餐馆美餐一顿。 因此他们告诉你餐馆在哪儿，价格， 地址，电话，等等。
Then you get to their political articles. Here’s a great article about an important election race that’s happening. It talks about the candidates — written very well — but no information, no follow-up, no websites for the campaigns, no information about when the debates are, where the campaign offices are. Here’s another good article about a new campaign opposing privatization of transit without any contact information for the campaign. The message seems to be that the readers are most likely to want to eat, maybe read a book, maybe see a movie, but not be engaged in their community. And you might think this is a small thing, but I think it’s important because it sets a tone and it reinforces the dangerous idea that politics is a spectator sport.
然后我们看看政治文章。 这是一篇关于正在进行的重要选举的很好的文章。 论及候选人 — 写的非常棒 — 但没有信息，没有寻根问底， 没有竞选者的网站， 没有关于辩论时间，竞选办公室的地址等信息。 这另一篇好文章 是关于反对交通运输私有化的一场新运动 其中没有任何关于这一运动的联系信息。 这似乎表明 读者最有可能想去品尝美食， 或是读一本书，或是看一场电影，但并没在他们的社区中参与活动。 各位也许会认为这是小事， 但我认为这很重要，因为这树立了一个榜样 并且加强了政治是项观赏性活动 这一危险看法。
Heroes: How do we view leadership? Look at these 10 movies. What do they have in common? Anyone? They all have heroes who were chosen. Someone came up to them and said, “You’re the chosen one. There’s a prophesy. You have to save the world.” And then someone goes off and saves the world because they’ve been told to, with a few people tagging along. This helps me understand why a lot of people have trouble seeing themselves as leaders because it sends all the wrong messages about what leadership is about. A heroic effort is a collective effort, number one. Number two, it’s imperfect; it’s not very glamorous, and it doesn’t suddenly start and suddenly end. It’s an ongoing process your whole life. But most importantly, it’s voluntary. It’s voluntary. As long as we’re teaching our kids that heroism starts when someone scratches a mark on your forehead, or someone tells you that you’re part of a prophecy, they’re missing the most important characteristic of leadership, which is that it comes from within. It’s about following your own dreams — uninvited, uninvited — and then working with others to make those dreams come true.
英雄：我们怎么看待领导力？ 看看这10部电影。它们有什么共同之处？ 有人知道么？ 它们中都有被选中的英雄。 有人走到他们面前说，“你就是被选中的那个人。 这是预言。你必须去拯救世界。” 接着有人动身去拯救世界，因为他们被告知要这么做， 身边只跟随了几个人。 这让我理解了 为什么许多人很难把自己视为领导者。 因为关于什么是领导力有太多的错误信息。 英雄式的壮举是集体的努力， 第一点。 第二点，它不完美；它不是很迷人； 它不是突然开始并突然结束的。 它是个持续一生的过程。 但最重要地是，它是自愿的。 它是自愿的。 只要我们还在教导我们的孩子 英雄事迹从有人在你额头画上标记时开始， 或是有人告诉你，你是预言的一部分时开始， 他们错过了领导力中最重要的特质， 而这是来自于内心的。 最重要的是追寻自己的梦想 — 未经邀请地，自发地 — 然后与他人一起努力实现这些梦想。
Political parties: oh boy. Political parties could and should be one of the basic entry points for people to get engaged in politics. Instead, they’ve become, sadly, uninspiring and uncreative organizations that rely so heavily on market research and polling and focus groups that they end up all saying the same thing, pretty much regurgitating back to us what we already want to hear at the expense of putting forward bold and creative ideas. And people can smell that, and it feeds cynicism.
政党：哇！ 政党能够成为并且应该是 人们参与政治的 基本切入点之一。 相反，它们已经悲哀地成为 缺乏创见的和缺乏创造性的组织 它们高度依赖市场调查、 投票和 总是能最终达成一致的焦点群体， 我们总是听到我们想听的， 而不是提出切实大胆创新的观点。 人们能感觉到这些，这成了冷嘲热讽。 （掌声）
Charitable status: Groups who have charitable status in Canada aren’t allowed to do advocacy. This is a huge problem and a huge obstacle to change because it means that some of the most passionate and informed voices are completely silenced, especially during election time. Which leads us to the last one, which is our elections.
慈善组织： 在加拿大，拥有慈善组织的团体不允许拥护某个候选者。 这是个大问题，也是变革的巨大障碍， 因为这意味着一些最热情的最知情的声音 将完全消失，尤其是在选举期间。 最后一点， 就是我们的选举。
As you may have noticed, our elections in Canada are a complete joke. We use out-of-date systems that are unfair and create random results. Canada’s currently led by a party that most Canadians didn’t actually want. How can we honestly and genuinely encourage more people to vote when votes don’t count in Canada? You add all this up together and of course people are apathetic. It’s like trying to run into a brick wall.
各位或许已经注意到了，加拿大的选举完全是个笑话。 我们使用落后的系统 这会产生一些不公平且随意的结果。 加拿大当前正由一个 多数加拿大人并不认可的政党领导着。 当在加拿大投票并不算数时， 我们如何能诚实地真诚地鼓励更多的人去投票呢？ 把所有这些放在一起 人们当然缺乏兴趣。 这就像试着玩儿穿墙术。
Now I’m not trying to be negative by throwing all these obstacles out and explaining what’s in our way. Quite the opposite: I actually think people are amazing and smart and that they do care. But that, as I said, we live in this environment where all these obstacles are being put in our way. As long as we believe that people, our own neighbors, are selfish, stupid or lazy, then there’s no hope. But we can change all those things I mentioned. We can open up city hall. We can reform our electoral systems. We can democratize our public spaces.
我现在列举出这些障碍， 说明我们面对的困难并不是想变得消极。 恰恰相反：我确实认为人们很棒很聪明 而且他们真的在乎。 但正如我说过的，我们生活在一个 充满坎坷的环境之中。 只要我们还在认为人们，我们的邻居， 是自私的、愚蠢的或是懒惰的， 就没有希望。 但我们能改变所有这些我所提到的事情。 我们能敞开市政厅。 我们能改良我们的选举系统。 我们能使我们的公共空间民主化。
My main message is, if we can redefine apathy, not as some kind of internal syndrome, but as a complex web of cultural barriers that reinforces disengagement, and if we can clearly define, we can clearly identify, what those obstacles are, and then if we can work together collectively to dismantle those obstacles, then anything is possible.
我的主旨是， 如果我们重新定义冷漠， 不把它视作某种内在症状， 而是把它视为阻止我们参与的 文化障碍的复杂网络， 如果我们能清晰地定义它，我们就能清晰地识别出 哪些是障碍， 而后，如果我们能一起协作去除这些障碍， 一切皆有可能。
Thank you.
谢谢。
（掌声）